@@@@@@. When Anxiety Takes the Director’s Chair: A Wrong-Number Call from the Police and the Story My Brain Ran With

Ever notice how the human brain treats uncertainty like a creative writing prompt it absolutely did not ask for? Give it one unanswered question, one vague voicemail, one unidentified number, and suddenly it’s drafting a full-length psychological thriller complete with lighting cues and a dramatic score. No table read required. No consent form signed. Just straight to production.

That was me today. Living my quiet, ordinary life, minding my business, probably thinking about food or whether the dog had been fed already or if I’d forgotten to take a pill—because when you live with chronic illness, your brain is basically a project manager with too many spreadsheets open. Then my phone buzzed.

Voicemail. From a police department. Not my local one. Not even close. About an hour away.

The first message was from a dispatcher who left their badge or ID number and absolutely nothing else. No reason for the call. No name. No context. Just enough information to feel official and ominous, like the opening line of a horror movie where the audience already knows something is wrong but the character hasn’t figured it out yet.

Then came voicemail number two. This one from a detective. The words “regarding a hit and run” floated out of my phone speaker like a curse.

And just like that, my nervous system clocked in for overtime.

At first, I tried to be rational. This has to be spam, right? I get scam calls constantly. I’m shocked no one has tried to sell me an extended warranty on my refrigerator yet. My phone rings, I ignore it, I move on. That’s the system. But this felt different. It sounded official. Calm. Unbothered. Which somehow made it worse.

So I did what every anxiety-prone human does when trying not to panic. I Googled the number.

It was real. Actual police department. Actual town. Actual reason for concern unlocked.

That’s when my brain decided it was time to go method method-actor level dramatic.

I haven’t been to that town in over twenty years. Two decades. Long enough that my memories of it feel like they belong to someone else. And yet there I was, mentally flipping through imaginary timelines, wondering how I might have accidentally become involved in a hit and run without knowing it. Was someone using my name? My information? Was this some elaborate insurance fraud plot where I was the unsuspecting villain?

The escalation was impressive, honestly. If anxiety were an Olympic sport, I’d have podium potential.

Then the plot twisted.

What if it wasn’t about me at all? What if it was someone connected to me?

That’s when I remembered that someone I know drives a company vehicle tied to my email and phone number. Long story, not even remotely exciting under normal circumstances, but suddenly it became the centerpiece of my internal investigation. This person also happens to have a bit of a heavy foot. Not recklessly so, but enough that we had joked about it the night before.

You can see where this is going.

Now my worry wasn’t legal or abstract. It was personal. This is someone I care about deeply. A genuinely good human. The kind of person who returns shopping carts and checks on you when you’re quiet for too long. The idea that they could be hurt—or worse, involved in something serious and frightening—made my stomach drop.

My chest felt tight. My thoughts raced. I had that familiar, awful sensation that something terrible had already happened and I just hadn’t been informed properly yet.

Living with sarcoidosis does strange things to your relationship with stress. Your body already operates on a hair trigger. Your nervous system doesn’t ask permission before hitting the alarm. Add heart failure to the mix, and suddenly every spike of anxiety comes with a side of, “Is this emotional or is this medical?” which is a game no one wins.

I could feel the physical response before I even acknowledged the fear. Elevated heart rate. That buzzing restlessness. The low-level nausea that shows up when your body decides it’s preparing for danger even if the danger is currently theoretical.

All of this over two voicemails.

Eventually, logic fought its way back onto the stage. Barely, but it showed up. I told myself I needed answers. Not imaginary ones. Real ones. So I did the hardest thing when you’re anxious: I called the number back.

The phone rang. I braced myself. I imagined the worst-case conversation. I rehearsed explanations for things I hadn’t done. I prepared apologies that weren’t mine to make.

The dispatcher answered.

And within about thirty seconds, the entire dramatic arc collapsed.

Wrong number. One digit off. They weren’t looking for me. They weren’t looking for anyone I knew. No hit and run connected to my life in any way. Just a clerical error paired with unfortunate phrasing and my brain’s overachieving imagination.

That was it. End of story. Fade to black.

I laughed after I hung up. Not because it was funny—although later it would be—but because laughter was the release valve. The pressure had nowhere else to go. I sat there feeling equal parts relief and mild embarrassment at how quickly I’d spiraled into a narrative worthy of a prestige cable series.

But here’s the thing: this is what living with chronic illness does to your internal storytelling.

When your body has betrayed you before, uncertainty feels dangerous. When you’ve gotten life-altering news from doctors, unexpected information doesn’t register as neutral. It registers as a threat until proven otherwise. Your brain learns that vague can be bad. Silence can be bad. Waiting can be bad.

So it fills in the blanks aggressively.

Anxiety becomes a screenwriter who refuses to leave well enough alone. It doesn’t pitch ideas. It commits to them. Fully funded. No rewrites.

And while I can laugh about this now, in the moment it was exhausting. My body paid the price for a story that never happened. That’s the part people don’t always see. The physical aftermath of emotional stress when you’re already managing conditions like sarcoidosis and heart failure. The way one spike can linger for hours, sometimes days.

Still, I learned something. Or maybe I was reminded of something I already knew but needed reinforced. My brain is very good at keeping me alive. It just isn’t great at distinguishing between real danger and imagined ones based on incomplete information.

And maybe that’s okay. Maybe that’s part of the deal. I don’t need to shame myself for reacting. I just need to recognize when the story has gotten away from me.

If nothing else, this whole episode confirmed one thing: if Hollywood ever needs someone to write a tense script based entirely on a missed call and a Google search, I’m available.

Until then, I’ll keep answering the phone. Eventually.

If this resonated with you, I’d love to hear your story. Leave a comment below and tell me about a time your brain ran off with the plot over something small. Or subscribe so you don’t miss future posts where I continue overthinking perfectly ordinary moments and trying to make peace with it.